João Mendes Ribeiro

Portuguese architect (Coimbra, 1960) whose work spans architecture, set design and design, with a particular focus on heritage renovation.

João Mendes Ribeiro (Coimbra, 1960) graduated in architecture from the University of Porto (1986), where he taught between 1989 and 1991, and holds a PhD in Architecture from the University of Coimbra (2009). An associate professor in the Department of Architecture of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology at the University of Coimbra, he was assistant to Fernando Távora between 1991 and 1998, a lineage that places him within the tradition of the Porto School.

From his studio in Coimbra he has developed a practice in which architecture, theatre set design and the design of objects and interiors feed into one another. His set designs for theatre and dance, conceived in close collaboration with directors and choreographers, earned him the Gold Medal for Best Stage Design at the 2007 Prague Quadrennial and have shaped his understanding of architecture as a precise, light and reversible assembly.

A large part of his built work is devoted to intervention in heritage buildings —the Centre for Visual Arts and the Casa da Escrita in Coimbra, the cloister of Lorvão Monastery, the São Pedro do Sul Roman Baths and the Palace of the Counts of Ourém—, alongside single-family houses and cultural buildings such as Arquipélago in the Azores. He has been part of the Portuguese representation at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2004, 2006, 2018 and 2025.

His work has received, among others, the FAD Awards (2004, 2016 and 2022), the BIAU Awards (2012 and 2016), the RIBA Award for International Excellence (2016), the Secil Architecture Award (2020), the National Urban Rehabilitation Award (2017 and 2021) and the Diogo de Castilho Prize (2003, 2007, 2011, 2017 and 2021), a career that has established him as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Portuguese architecture.